Thursday, May 02, 2024 | Last Update : 11:19 PM IST
Goel son ‘haveli’ mired in tax row
Delhi businessman Siddhant Goel, son of the Union sports minister Vijay Goel, launched a heritage rickshaw tour from his newly-restored haveli in Old Delhi — which was mired in a tax emption row.
Delhi businessman Siddhant Goel, son of the Union sports minister Vijay Goel, launched a heritage rickshaw tour from his newly-restored haveli in Old Delhi — which was mired in a tax emption row.
Cricketer Gautam Gambhir and filmmaker Madhur Bhandarkar were present at the launch function on Sunday. Mr Siddhant Goel, who has started the heritage tour project with his friend Keshav, said the eco-friendly rickshaw gives not only a comfortable ride but a hint of royalty and cultural richness.
He said tourists taking the rickshaw tour will get to sample the local culture that includes patangbaazi, kabootarbaazi and carom tournaments. “We also aim to start small cultural programmes and local cultural street performances along with the tour,” he said.
In September, the haveli, which Mr Siddhant Goel helped restore and convert into a boutique hotel, courted controversy following the BJP-ruled North Delhi Municipal Corporation’s (NDMC) move to introduce a tax-exemption rule that benefits over 750 heritage buildings in its jurisdiction.
Hitting out at the civic body, the Aam Aadmi Party had then claimed that the civic body waived off Rs 25 crore in taxes just to benefit the Mr Siddhant Goel-owned property.
But Raitsh Nanda, CEO of the Aga Khan Trust, said such tax incentives are necessary to promote the resue of heritage buildings.
“The conservation doesn’t need to be the government’s prerogative. All over the world, conservation is really run by private efforts,” he told this newspaper. “I have great administration for what they have done because conservation is not just preservation and restoration, conservation is also reuse. So what has done here is that a building has been put to modern use in a very economical manner,” he said.
Mr Siddhant Goel said after successfully restoring the haveli, he is looking to boost cultural tourism in the Old Delhi area. “Through our curated tours, we wish to promote places which are as beautiful as the Taj like the hidden gold-plated Digdambar Jain Naya Mandir,” he said.
